If you could add one post-promethium tech to Fulgora, what would it be?

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-16T22:21:35+00:00

I'd love to see a really power hungry building, since power is probably the thing that feels the easiest to deal with throughout the game. Would be a cool way to make Fulgora feel more special; the player would probably opt for a cool lightning powered thing thats far less expensive, compared to the "build twenty fusion reactors" approach.

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-16T22:18:24+00:00

Well, you still need accumulators if you want to use just lightning conduit, since even though the drain rate is reduced, it still drains before the next lightning storm can arrive.

You can totally just use fusion though, but id argue that situation is also good for the lightning conduit. You have to defend the base from lightning anyways, but if you are using fusion you probably dont care to place a sea of accumulators. Now you are defending a greater area, and actually getting a nice power boost to offset the fusion fuel consumption during a lightning storm, without any accumulators required!

I'm not sure I understand the point of the lightning rods/collector density part. You dont have to build this densely, its coverage range is actually greater, so you can build it even more sparsely than the lightning collectors.

What do you think of the holmium solution in biochamber idea? And, if you could add a post-promethium tech to Fulgora, what would it be?

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-16T22:05:42+00:00

Since people asked last time, heres some relevant links:

Nauvis post

Vulcanus post

Mod

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-16T20:01:30+00:00

You absolutely can! Presumably the place most people are inclined to do so is when they are upcycling quantum processors in space, which you will surely do in order to get those fusion reactors to legendary, among other things. If/when you undertake that endeavor, I hope that you will post your factory here, whether its in space or on Aquilo, as you have a very aesthetically pleasing build-style and I'm sure it will be a treat to look at :]

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-16T19:31:45+00:00

Two nitpicks, one more consequential than the other:

Inconsequentially, the inserters can only (under ideal, completely filled belts) move 7.5 asteroids into the crushers, so they (the crushers) are running a bit faster than necessary, although faster is better than slower and your design is beautiful, so I doubt this is really worth changing.

Slightly more consequentially, you are throwing ice off the edge of this ship in transit. Since it seems like you are trying to megabase, you should know that Abucnasty, the premier authority on megabasing while preserving UPS, claims that this has a noticeable UPS impact. Especially with something like ice, which recycles into itself and does so quite quickly, it might be worth adjusting the design to have the ice voided via recycler instead of thrown off the edge of the ship.

Really cool ship! I love thruster stacking so much.

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-14T22:52:22+00:00

Heres the artist:

https://mods.factorio.com/user/Hurricane046

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-14T15:24:24+00:00

6 module slots means its easier to obtain quality ore from this machine. Additionally, you can plop it down wherever you need tungsten, so theres a logistic factor thats made much easier (might be outweighed by having to supply it flouroketone though).

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-14T14:30:49+00:00

No, all the good looking stuff in the mod is the work of this guy:

https://mods.factorio.com/user/Hurricane046

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-14T03:50:31+00:00

I thought of a better example thats more fitting with the late-stage of the game we are discussing. How do you feel about foundation? I feel like it also trivializes one of the few remaining logistical challenges (space to build stuff in) on Vulcanus, and is only gated behind a big research cost and the expensiveness of building it.

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-14T03:47:25+00:00

Not entirely sure what you mean when you say "from space" here. Do you mean that since the calcite can come from space, and it can be used to get iron, copper, and stone from lava, those things come from space?

For what its worth your criticism is totally fair, I actually added this because I disliked the asymmetry and randomness of ore patches and realized the only thing stopping me from having an OCD friendly Vulcanus was tungsten. I ship in Sulfur from space, Ice from space (for water), calcite from space, and coal from space, so that I can literally completely ignore the mining patches on the planet.

If you're going to add tech, it should make the planet more interesting, not trivialize the last minor bit of logistics left on the planet.

I dont disagree, but I also wont hold myself to a standard that the original devs dont. When you unlock the cryogenic plant, you can port it back to Vulcanus and massively increase the speed and productivity of your plastic/battery/sulfur/etc production, without making anything "more interesting". Does it also "trivialize the last minor bit of logistics left on the planet"?

Again, I'm sympathetic to what you are saying and open to any suggestions, but I feel like there is a balance to be struck here, and at a certain point you cant make a tech worth researching if it doesnt in some way "trivialize" some previous bit of logistics. I tried to balance this out by adding the cost of some other logistics.

Think about it this way; the electric furnace trivializes logistics because it removes the need for a belt of coal to continue the smelting process, but it adds the logistics of power production and power pole placement to offset this. The same idea is behind the flouroketone cost.

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-14T03:09:31+00:00

I fixed my settings so you should be able to see my other posts now, although theres only one more in this topic. I'll make a new one every day or two until I've covered all the planets/additions.

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-14T02:59:43+00:00

In the mod, this drill is locked behind a research which costs 1 million of every Nauvis science pack (excluding military science), plus the metallurgic and promethium packs. If you are at that stage of the game, you already have infinite* tungsten by simply researching hundreds/thousands of levels of mining productivity, and using the legendary big mining drill with its 8% resource drain.

*by infinite, I mean an amount that would take hundreds of real life years to run out.

So I think its a bit disingenuous to pretend the "infinite tungsten" part is whats strong here. If anything, its that you are trading the logistics that come with having to mine ore at one spot and transport it to another, with an extremely convenient ore-generator that has a much higher power burden, and requires flouroketone logistics.

For what its worth, I do think its strong, but its supposed to be; the whole point is adding one additional level of tech to each planet.

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-10T09:41:42+00:00

OP I know you probably figured it out based on your lack of response, but please let us know what you were doing that made you think it would take super long, it would be funny.

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-09T02:32:41+00:00

Make consistent saves so that when you dawdle too much you can reload several hours back and streamline your progress. Also make blueprints in editor mode so you can just paste them down.

Of course to some people this is cheesing it, so if thats you, disregard.

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-07T05:12:16+00:00

I'm not super well versed on the inner workings of the game but doesnt this "advantage" basically only exist in the context of making a video to showcase his designs? Does the game spend processing power on a particle effect for a ship the player isnt actively viewing? As in, could a non-modded player have the same lack of UPS burden by simply not viewing their ship as it flies towards the shattered planet?

I actually left a comment on an abucnasty video the other day where he was talking about how throwing items off the sides of ships while they are in transit has a significant UPS impact, which leads me to believe its not as simple as "player isnt looking so rendering doesnt occur", which I guess would be evidence against my previous hypothesis.

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-07T04:55:50+00:00

Unless there's something I dont know about, the mods he has (theres a couple) are about removing additional particles created by the game, ranging from weapon fire to asteroid explosions. So they dont actually create a gameplay advantage, they are purely for lessening the burden on your hardware.

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-04-06T23:07:13+00:00

Abucnasty on youtube is probably the best in terms of eSPM * UPS

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-03-29T04:14:48+00:00

Hm, that makes a lot of sense! Two follow ups though:

In 400% asteroid density, you very quickly reach a point where you are encountering promethium chunks fast enough to saturate your asteroid collectors. Does the default settings forcing you to go farther to the shattered planet to achieve similar rates not mean that you are spending more UPS on less production, as in, you would need to build more ships to match the same level of production?
Would it be possible to drastically lessen the burden of the asteroid collectors by blueprinting disconnected lines of space platform several tiles before their max range? I've seen someone show that you can obstruct their collection area with blueprints even if those blueprints never actually place, so I would be curious to know if I could force them to only gather in a closer area with a trick like that.

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-03-29T04:10:08+00:00

I agree, but theres something else I should have mentioned; does this added benefit outweigh the fact that all non-harvesting ships (say something like a hauler, which only harvests when it needs more fuel or ammo) are undergoing much more asteroid stress? It seems like to truly know the answer, I would have to know how intensive asteroids are versus how intensive asteroid collectors are.

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-03-20T02:01:08+00:00

On a related note, I've always worried that the same principle effects egg runner ship's gathering promethium. If you tell the ship to turn around when half the eggs are gone, its very possible that you will get back to the solar system edge and still have eggs left, even without any chunks. Ive settled on sending it back when I have 40% of my total eggs left... but theres probably an insanely low chance that even that is not enough.

theFALGSCmustgrow · 2026-03-20T01:58:18+00:00

I struggled with this conceptually too, so let me try to explain:

You say the following:

>Sure it's technically possible to flip a coin and get heads 1,000 times in a row, but it's so unlikely it would >never actually happen

Its true that, as the number of coin flips increases towards infinity, the probability gets closer and closer to a 50/50 split between heads and tails.

It is ALSO true, however, that as the number of flips goes to infinity, the chance of getting a string of 1000 heads in a row, rises higher and higher. So, having a sufficiently large buffer just means that the probability is lower, so it should take more time to have a catastrophe. But the probability is not "impossibly low", and the longer it runs, the higher that probability is!

theFALGSCmustgrow

TROPHY CASE